There are diverse ways for people to find and consume media programs. For example, a person wanting to watch a movie may utilize a traditional video distribution service such as a video rental or purchase service (“video service”) to find, access, and watch a movie. The video service may allow the person to rent or purchase a physical copy of the movie from a local video store or video vending kiosk, or to rent or purchase a digital copy of the movie through an online video service, which may stream or download the digital copy of the movie to a user computing device for playback to the user.
Such a video service typically provides a user of the service with tools for discovering video programs offered for access through the video service. For example, a video service may provide a user with a tool (e.g., a web-based interface, a client application, etc.) that the user may use to log in to the video service in order to browse through video programs provided by the video service, access (e.g., view, download, purchase, and/or rent) video programs provided by the video service, and/or otherwise interact with the video service. Activities performed by the user with respect to the video service may be tracked while the user is logged in to the video service in order to provide the user with a personalized interaction experience with the video service. For example, a viewing history of the user may be tracked in order to provide one or more personalized recommendations to the user while the user is logged in to the video service.
Unfortunately, one user's activities with respect to the video service may “pollute” a personalized interaction experience provided to another user of the video service if both users access the video service using the same user account. This is because conventional video services do not differentiate between the activities performed by the various users of the same user account when providing one of those users with a personalized interaction experience. For example, a child may log in to a video service with a user account shared by members of the child's family. While logged in to the video service, the child may use the video service to watch multiple episodes of a children's program (e.g., a program entitled “Barney”). Subsequently, the child's parent may log in to the video service using the same user account. Based on the viewing history generated by the child, the parent may be presented with recommendations for other children's programming similar to the children's program accessed by the child instead of recommendations for programs in which the parent is likely interested.
Some video services attempt to address this pollution problem by allowing users to switch between different user profiles within the same user account. Activity performed within each user profile may then be tracked and used to provide personalized interaction experiences within each user profile. Unfortunately, this requires users to proactively ensure that they are logged into the correct user profile. It also sacrifices the benefits of shared content discovery among the users.